Motivational Quotes

Ideas

Ideas are, in truth, force.

- James, Henry

Best Quotes about Ideas

The idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.

Hubbard, Elbert

To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!

H. L. Mencken

Ideas too are a life and a world.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

Such as take lodgings in a head that's to be let unfurnished.

Butler, Samuel

Long is the road from conception to completion.

Moliere

The world moves, and ideas that were good once are not always good.

Whenever I hear people talking about liberal ideas, I am always astounded that men should love to fool themselves with empty sounds. An idea should never be liberal; it must be vigorous, positive, and without loose ends so that it may fulfill its divine mission and be productive. The proper place for liberality is in the realm of the emotions.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny.

Carl Schurz

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and if need be, die for it.

Whitehead, Alfred North

10.

When an idea reaches critical mass there is no stopping the shift its presence will induce.

Williamson, Marianne

11.

You have to hatch ideas -- and then hitch them.

Everson, Ray D.

12.

In Texas, years ago, almost all of the oil came from surface operations. Then someone got the idea that there were greater sources of supply deeper down. A well was drilled five thousand feet deep. The result? A gusher. Too many of us operate on the surface. We never go deep enough to find supernatural resources. The result is, we never operate at our best. More time and investment is involved to go deep but a gusher will pay off.

Montapert, Alfred A.

13.

It's easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out-of-date.

Oech, Roger Von

14.

A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

15.

There is no prosperity, trade, art, city, or great material wealth of any kind, but if you trace it home, you will find it rooted in a thought of some individual man. --

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

16.

Ideas are invented only as correctives to the past. Through repeated rectification of this kind one may hope to disengage an idea that is valid.

Bachelard, Gaston

17.

In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.

Bacon, Francis

18.

It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely, at an angle.

Gide, Andre

19.

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.

Eliot, George

20.

Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

21.

Every new idea is an impossibility until it is born.

Brown, Ron

22.

Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wander whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.

Kierkegaard, S°ren

23.

Little words hurt big ideas.

Newton, Howard W.

24.

A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

25.

The point, simply, is that we are doing more rediscovering these days than discovering coming anew upon truths that ignorant people refused to examine, over the centuries, because the wise people who held custody of the fundamental truths of nature were unpopular.

Williamson, John

26.

Ideas are the roots of creation.

Dimnet, Ernest

27.

Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.

Hugo, Victor

28.

An idea is worth nothing if it has no champion.

29.

Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy.

Jim Hightower

30.

Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when you only have one.

Chartier, Alain

31.

It's a pretty good idea to be of good cheer but not all the time. Just at the most unexpected times.

32.

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.

Keynes, John Maynard

33.

To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should.

Rostand, Jean

34.

All achievements, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea.

Hill, Napoleon

35.

Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent.

Rivarol, Antoine

36.

So long as new ideas are created, sales will continue to reach new highs.

Brande, Dorothea

37.

Ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever.

Trotsky, Leon

38.

Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.

Dogen

39.

The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.

William O. Douglas

40.

If you pray for only one thing, .let it be for an idea.

Sutton, Percy

41.

It is the nature of thought to find its way into action.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

42.

It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

Keynes, John Maynard

43.

Brain cells create ideas. Stress kills brain cells. Stress is not a good idea.

Saunders, Richard

44.

Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.

Howard Aiken

45.

I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.

Georgia O'Keeffe

46.

You look at any giant corporation, and I mean the biggies, and they all started with a guy with an idea, doing it well.

Robbins, Irvine

47.

To have a great idea, have a lot of them.

Edison, Thomas A.

48.

We like to test things... no matter how good an idea sounds, test it first.

Block, Henry

49.

Our greatest lack is not money for any undertaking, but rather ideas, If the ideas are good, cash will somehow flow to where it is needed.

Schuller, Robert H.

50.

It's very good for an idea to be commonplace. The important thing is that a new idea should develop out of what is already there so that it soon becomes an old acquaintance. Old acquaintances aren't by any means always welcome, but at least one can't be mistaken as to who or what they are.

Fitzgerald, Penelope